What was I thinking?!

Reflections on four years of ski blogging

Moraine Lake road, Nov 10, 2008

Four years ago today, on an impulse, I sat down at the computer and started this blog after skiing on Moraine Lake road. First ever post

I’m not sure how many readers I had for that first blog post but a dozen would probably be stretching it. Today, this blog was read by 400 skiers – before 8 a.m!

Is anybody still reading this today who was here back in Nov 2008?

It was fitting that yesterday we set an all-time single-day record with 2759 readers and 5425 page views.

Skiing and blogging about it. It’s one of those jobs that I’d do for free…wait a minute…

World blogging headquarters of SkierBob.ca

Okay, it’s obvious to anyone that I’m not doing it for free anymore, but for those first three years it was simply a labour of love and still is. This blog is a good example of the old saying, “Do what you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” Or, “Do what you love, the money will follow.” Or, better yet, “Do what you love, the women will…okay that last one may not be true.

On a similar note, however, does anyone find it odd that when I post a photo of Cheryl in the Banff Hot Springs that it receives five times as many views as the ski trail pictures which are posted beside it? I guess we have a lot of normal, healthy, red-blooded males reading here.

Some other musings:

• My knowledge of skiing has increased immensely over the last four years due to the Trip Reports from skiers who know a whole lot more than me.
• I’ll take credit for being green. My trips to the trails where conditions are poor have hopefully saved a lot of needless driving. Credit for that also goes to the contributors on the Trip Reports page. Jeannie was the one who brought the “green” aspect to my attention.
• It’s been my pleasure to get to know many of the hard-working people who do their best to give us relevant and timely information from the government-run websites. They all love this blog because we can say the things which they can’t.  In any case, I’ve noticed a significant improvement in the trail reports over the past four years from the various sources.
• It’s gratifying to hear from my readers when we meet on the ski trail; makes the ski trips even more fun.

This blog wouldn’t have become so popular without the contributions from its readers, and for that, I thank Steve, Chuck, Alf and everyone else who’s given a trip report over the years.